Commercial vehicles capable of transporting passengers, such as airplanes, trains, marine vessels, and buses, often include luggage bins for the storage of passenger carry-on luggage. Typically, overhead luggage bins are fastened within the interior passenger compartment on opposite sides of the vehicle interior. Such luggage bins include an upper bin panel and a shelf held in spaced disposition by a pair of bulkheads to define storage space therebetween. The inboard facing side of the luggage bin includes a hingedly attached door. The storage space is sized to accommodate carry-on luggage, such as appropriately sized travel bags.
In recent years, air travel has become increasingly commonplace for business and short vacation trips. Further, passengers have increasingly tended to travel with larger amounts of carry-on luggage, thereby placing a premium on available overhead luggage bin storage space. Further, because of the increased numbers of passengers using carry-on luggage, airlines have been increasingly enforcing the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) recommended carry-on size limit. As a result, the traveling public has been using luggage industry standard 22" wheel-equipped carry-on bags in greater numbers. However, in certain airplanes, the overhead luggage bins will only accept the 22" standard roller bags lengthwise within the bin, due to inadequate bin depth and door geometry. Further, because overhead luggage bins are compartmentalized, many overhead luggage bins are sized to accept only one 22" roller bag lengthwise within the overhead bin. Because so many traveling passengers are now adopting the use of these bags, there is a potential for a chronic shortage of bin space to accommodate the passengers. This results in passenger frustration and delays in boarding and unboarding of the vehicle.
Currently, modular extension kits that may be retrofitted onto the inboard-facing section of the overhead luggage bin are available. Typically, such modular kits are completely pre-assembled to standard industrial specifications for a given type of vehicle. The modular kits typically include upper panel, bulkhead, and shelf extensions pre-assembled to predetermined dimensions.
Although such kits are effective at increasing the storage volume within the overhead bin, they are not without their problems. One such problem results from the modular nature of the kit itself. Specifically, modular units built to a pre-set dimensional standard may not fit in an existing luggage cavity as intended because of tolerance variance or component wear. As a result, the kit assembly requires undesirable modifications at the site of installation to properly attach the modular extension to the overhead bin. This results in increased down time for the aircraft.
Thus, there exists a need for a bin extension kit to suit a variety of requirements, that is easy to install, permits a high degree of installation flexibility, and minimizes the down time of the vehicle in which it is being installed.
The assignee has developed other retrofit technologies, e.g., as embodied in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,395,074 and 5,687,929, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.